Monday, 3 August 2009

Can We Please Stop Taking Out An Onion For This Man?

As overblown hyperbole goes, the article by Nick Clegg in the 'Daily Fail' must rank in the top ten:

Yesterday's decision to allow Gary McKinnon to be extradited to the U.S. is a hammer blow to British justice. A vulnerable man with Asperger's Syndrome now faces up to 60 years in one of America's toughest jails.

If he boards the plane to the U.S., it is almost certain he will never set foot on British soil again, doomed to pass out the rest of his days in shackles on a foreign shore.

Oh, good grief! Someone tell this man Alcatraz is now a tourist attraction...

The U.S. authorities are trying to make an example of Mr McKinnon partly because he decided to fight the extradition - they offered to press far lesser charges if he came quietly without making a fuss. It is shocking that, simply because he exercised his basic right to challenge the extradition, he has been labelled a terrorist and treated like one, too.

Can I remind you, Nicky, that our very own justice system will refuse parole to anyone who fails to 'acknowledge' his crime? So, if you happen to be innocent, you'll spend more time behind bars if you insist on that fact.

That's not so very different, is it? Are you planning on railing against this state of affairs, rather than the justice system of another country over which you have no influence?

Or does that not afford you the platform you seek to gain publicity for your little party?

Can I remind you, Nicky, that our very own justice system will refuse parole to anyone who fails to 'acknowledge' his crime? So, if you happen to be innocent, you'll spend more time behind bars if you insist on that fact.

That's not so very different, is it?

In fairness I think what he's having a pop at is that McKinnon would have been charged with less serious offences had he come quietly rather than challenge the extradition. This is done frequently in the UK as well of course. From 'fixed penalty' speeding fines and police cautions on up, justice is frequently geared to getting a result without too much time and effort and expense on the part of the prosecuting parties... and incidentally fuck the accused - if they don't like it they can have their day in court instead, but knowing that But it's really not the same as not getting paroled because you're still refusing to own up to the crime for which you were imprisoned.

However, I think Clegg would have done better to focus on the one sided extradition arrangements between the US and UK. As was highlighted a while back when the 'NatWest Three' were in the papers for a similar reason, it's bloody hard to extradite from the US but the UK seems pathetically eager to ship its citizens off to answer charges in American courts. McKinnon seems to have more of a case to answer than the NatWest blokes but note that he is not fighting trial, just trial in the US where being a dedicated tinfoil hat wearing window licker - not to mention having Asperger's - might not be enough to stop him being repeatedly arse raped for months or years. A sensible course of action would be to prevent or monitor his internet use so that he couldn't carry on hacking, but while a British court might go for that, or even a US court had McKinnon been a septic or a US resident, about all they can practically do is lock the nutter up. This whole thing would be a total non-story if the supine British government had the minerals to send a short email to the US prosecutors saying simply that the man is a harmless loony who's probably read too much sci-fi and they can't have him.

"However, I think Clegg would have done better to focus on the one sided extradition arrangements between the US and UK. As was highlighted a while back when the 'NatWest Three' were in the papers for a similar reason..."

They got more sympathy from me then McKinnon does, for the very little that it's worth. From what I remember their "offence" didn't exist in the UK, the supposed victim company was British, it all took place in the UK and the only connection to the US at all was that they were hugely embarrassed by the Enron scandal and were prepared to go after anyone tenuously connected with it. McKinnon does at least have a case to answer even if he is a harmless tinfoil hatter and even if he might really be in his situation because some American egos got bruised.